Just from this overture and opening title music you can readily hear the Englishness and the influence of Vaughn-Williams and, very briefly, Bernard Herrmann and even Richard Rodgers (Uncle Tom ballet sequence "The King and I"). But Bennett's was essentially an individual voice and the lonely, opening theme on the flute - followed by the oboe - in the title music is a powerful trope for farmer Oaks (Bates) and his isolation. He is accompanied only by sheep in a landscape devoid of even trees!